


Sympathy

by LamiaHypnosia



Series: Our Time In The Universe [5]
Category: The Outer Worlds (Video Game)
Genre: Friendship, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Hangover, Hurt/Comfort, Tea
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-06
Updated: 2021-02-06
Packaged: 2021-03-12 03:14:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,115
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29253522
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LamiaHypnosia/pseuds/LamiaHypnosia
Summary: Anton Crane is still stuck in this law forsaken colony. His life is just the freakin' pits. But then he finds Captain Kenna Frost, recently bereaved and deep in her cups. Naturally he does the gentlemanly thing and brings her to his place to sleep it off.
Relationships: Female Captain & Anton Crane, The Captain & Anton Crane
Series: Our Time In The Universe [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1663147
Comments: 7
Kudos: 6





	Sympathy

**Author's Note:**

> Anton Crane deserves more love. 
> 
> Also remember my little hatchlings that brewing tea correctly is SERIOUS BUSINESS.

Against all efforts, Kenna awoke. She'd slept for what felt like centuries yet she was still exhausted. She was in a bed, it wasn’t her bed. How'd she get here? Oh law it was that music festival all over again. No, she was on Groundbreaker. Her stomach was ailing and her head was swollen. Even moving her eyes within their sockets was agony. A wave of nausea forced her to drag herself into a sitting position.

Someone set a glass of water beside her and she brought it to her lips, drinking gratefully. Setting the glass down she squinted up at her caretaker. “Dr. Crane?” She said incredulously. 

“Surprised to see me? I suppose that is fitting. I seldom- oh.” 

Kenna gagged, covered her mouth with her hand and gave him a pleading look. Anton caught on immediately and slid a plastic bucket toward her with his foot just in time for her to vomit tiredly into it. Anton frowned at her then kneeling gathered her long hair so it wouldn’t touch the foul smelling contents.

Rinsing out her mouth with the offered water Kenna spat into the bucket before laying on the bed again arm draped across her eyes. When Anton had found her in that state he almost didn’t recognize her. Kenna Frost was a radiant beauty, not this sad sick husk. Nor was she prone to melancholy, that he knew of. Her optimism, her drive, was what saved Halcyon from utter collapse. Or at the very least she was a catalyst. Without her and Dr. Welles there would be no hope, as it were.  
The sight of her made Anton’s heart ache. Not just because of her ragged state but what had brought it about. Not time. Loss. Only love could break a heart into this many pieces. 

He’d found her slouched in a chair at the Lost Hope on the verge of passing out. With the help of a stevedore he’d seen her chatting with they assisted her back to Anton’s room to sleep it off. Anton wondered if he should bring her back to the Unreliable but reasoned if she got sick in the state she was in she could very well aspirate.

“Why did you help me?” Kenna asked in a dry voice. 

“I couldn’t very well leave you at the mercy of strangers.” he answered. “Plus you were ill.” 

Kenna moved her arm and squinted at him in something like confusion, even a little annoyance.  
She said nothing. After a moment he said “Do you want to try and eat a little?”

Kenna answered with a groan. 

Anton mentally kicked himself for even mentioning food. “Tea, perhaps? “

Kenna sat up. She hadn’t noticed the tea service on the coffee table. Anton rented a cramped pair of rooms on Groundbreaker for the time being but he’d set himself up nicely. He was still a man of refinement as this would attest. Realizing she hadn’t answered Kenna replied “Yes please.”

Anton poured her a cup which Kenna fixed to her taste -less sugar though, it was a delicate cup not a coffee mug- and a splash of milk. Cream, as it turned out. Anton didn’t fuck around with his tea time. She took a sip and her expression brightened. “My tea never comes out this good. What do you do to it?”

“Nothing.” Anton shrugged as he stirred his own cup. “Boil, steep five minutes.”

“Oh!” 

“What?”

“You boil the water. I just macrowave mine.”

Anton stared at her as though she’d just committed the most grievous of sins. Macrowave, and she probably left the bag in the cup when she drank it. A nerve in his cheek jumped a little at this sacrilege. He recovered with “A shame we don’t have much of a variety. My mother inherited books on Earth cuisine, one of which was tea varieties. Black tea, green tea, white tea, rooibos, puerh, oolong, any number of herbal tisanes. Alas we are stuck with tripicale and its slightly altered variations.”

Kenna listened, picking up her cup to look at it closer. It was a beautiful work of art, not just a vessel for hot leaf liquid, delicate and graceful as butterflies’ wings. 

At last Anton had to know. He rested his cup and saucer on his knee. “I know I shouldn’t pry but what were you doing there alone?”

“Wasn’t it obvious? Drinking my pain away.” 

Then without thinking Anton caught sight of her jacket that lay draped across a chair. Black. He’d read a long time ago that wearing black was an old Earth custom to show the wearer was in mourning. “You still grieve for Dr. Welles.”

True to her surname, the look Kenna gave Anton was glacial. Her nostrils flared and Anton cleared his throat nervously.

“No, what you are doing is running from yourself. The thing about running from yourself is you always bring yourself with you.”

Kenna sighed deeply. “We both worried about this. We almost didn’t get together because of it. I said it would hurt more if he’d rejected me and I had to let my feelings go but this…” she stared forlornly into her teacup. “This hurts so much worse. “  
She barely heard him transfer his cup to the end table but when Kenna looked up Anton was kneeling beside her taking her hand in both of his. They were as warm as his voice when he told her. “Kenna, there is nothing wrong with what you are feeling. Grief is simply...love with no destination.”

Kenna smiled at him. He smiled back and pulling up a chair took up his cup and saucer again, draping one of his long legs across the other. 

“I’m sorry for my rudeness, Dr-”

“Please call me Anton. And it’s quite alright.”

Anton sat with Kenna for hours listening to her tell stories about Phineas. This was not the monster from the wanted posters, not a ruthless criminal nor a terrorist but a man of passion, conviction and boundless energy. Anton felt he’d been let inside a sacred place as Kenna shared what were likely the most precious of memories. The thought both moved and humbled him. 

Eventually she helped him clean up and went to leave. “Anton?”

“Yes?”

“Thank you. For everything.” Taking his hand she had to stand on tiptoe to gently peck his cheek. 

Anton blushed a little. "You are most welcome. My door is always open to you. Should you need a sympathetic ear, or a cup of decent tea.”

Kenna rolled her eyes and smiled sheepishly at him, giving him a mini salute. Then she disappeared into the sea of stevedores, Mardets and crew members on leave.


End file.
